There has been a rapid movement over the past few weeks by commercial traders of gold futures to increase their net short position as a group. That is a development which has importance for the future of gold prices.

Non-Commercial Traders. The big speculators, AKA hedge funds. They usually have the opposite position from the commercials, with the exact difference between them consisting of the positions held by…

Non-Reportable Traders. The small money, and nearly always the dumb money. They are called non-reportable because the size of positions they hold is so small that the CFTC deems them not to merit reporting individually.

I report on the relevant developments in the COT Report data in every Friday’s Daily Edition. Not every week has meaningful insights for every one of the futures contracts that I follow. Generally speaking, these data are most valuable when they show an extreme reading, because extremes suggest that a move in the other direction is likely. But figuring out what an extreme reading consists of can be a bit of a trick.